Fanfic / Nice Guy Adrien

Nice Guy Adrien is a Miraculous Ladybug AU created by lenoreofraven on tumblr.

The basic premise revolves around Adrien finding out about Marinette being Ladybug and professing his love for her. Marinette isn't too sure about following a relationship however, pointing out some of the problems they've had in their relationship. From there, Adrien's worst flaws and behaviors spiral out of control, turning him into a thorough "Nice Guy".

There's also a version of the AU that's a musical.

As the AU is mostly in asks on the original blog, the tag is here or chronologically from the beginning here

There are a few works that have been inspired by the AU, including Put the Cat Out, Bewitched, and its sequel Bewildered. A playlist for the musical can be found here.

General AU contains examples of:

• Adaptational Jerkass: Adrien wasn't a complete saint in canon, but the story's main arc revolves around his flaws escalating.
• Adaptational Villainy: Adrien, despite being one of the nicest characters in the show, gets treated in a few of the endings as a bigger threat than Hawkmoth.
• Ascended Extra: Luka and Kagami often step up to the plate as new miraculous holders.
  • Felix, originally scrapped from the PV, is also often brought into the mix.
• Face–Heel Turn: Most versions warp Adrien's behavior so far, that it's possible for him to become the new Hawkmoth with Lila as his second in command.
• Flanderization: Adrien's flaws get taken up to eleven.
• From Bad to Worse: In versions where not only does Marinette have to contend with Adrien, but also Stalker!Lila.
• Heel Realization: In the versions where Adrien realizes what he's doing is wrong.
• Jukebox Musical: The musical version pulls songs from other sources, ranging from pop songs to songs from actual musicals.
• Multiple Endings: The author has noted that there are at least a few different variations and endings for the AU. These include Adrien realizing he screwed up and tries to make amends, the entire story being just a dream or Adrien's behavior getting worse and worse.
  • There's also a version of the AU that's a musical.
  • Most versions of the AU have the polyship of Marinette, Luka, Kagami and Felix as endgame, though earlier versions had just Marinette and Luka dating early on in the story.
• The Musical: Has become one of these.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In the versions where Adrien realizes his behavior has gotten out of hand.

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Put the Cat Out contains examples of:

• Ascended Extra: While Kagami is more important than an extra in canon, Fu considers giving her the fox miraculous to counter Chat.
• Entitled to Have You: In addition to Marinette, Adrien insists that Plagg belongs to him.
• Face–Heel Turn: If Adrien hasn't already undergone one, he appears to be headed in this direction.
• Feeling Their Age: During their fight, Fu comments to himself that he's too old for this.
• From Bad to Worse: Not only did Marinette return the Ladybug Miraculous, Fu fails to take the Cat Miraculous back from Adrien. He can only hope that Adrien doesn't go back after her.
• My Greatest Failure: Downplayed. Fu considers Chat Noir to be one of his mistakes.

  Fu: "Just another mistake to add to the list'''

• Rage Against the Mentor: Chat starts a fight against Fu when he demands the Miraculous back.

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Bewitched and Bewildered contain examples of:

• 10-Minute Retirement: Marinette. At the beginning of Bewitched, she's walking home after returning it to Fu, so she can't compromise it in case she gets too overwhelmed.
  • Kagami returns it to her in Bewildered after confessing to her.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Bewitched spares Nino because he stands up for Marinette against Alya and Adrien. Instead, he becomes one of her familiars.
  • Bewitched is far kinder and softer around Felix and Luka when they stumble across her in chapter three. Bewitched even tries to turn Luka into one of her familiars, only for Felix to take the blow at the last minute. After the fact, she assures Felix that she has enough love for him, Luka and Kagami, implying she wanted all three of them at her side.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Marinette. Lila, Alya and Adrien all learn this the hard way after Bewitched is born.
  • Luka. See below for why.
• Broken Pedestal: After finding out that Adrien and Chat are the same person, and that he was in large responsible for akumatizing Ladybug, Chloé rips Adrien a new one, and vows to be more like the hero Ladybug hopes her to be.
• Entitled to Have You: It gets so bad that Marinette decides to give back the Ladybug Miraculous to Fu, hoping that Adrien's feelings will fade. It doesn't work.
• Love Confession: Luka, Kagami and Felix give Marinette one in Bewildered. Luka even confesses the same way he did in Silencer!
• Meaningful Name: The author has a few reasons for using the name "Bewitched":
  • It shares the same name as the show, which inspired the magical girl genre, which in turn inspired ML.
  • "Bewitched" can mean to charm someone. In canon, Marinette is "bewitched" by Adrien, and Nice Guy Adrien is "bewitched" by Marinette after their reveal.
  • Familial theming with her grandmother Gina - Gina became Befana, a figure in Italian folklore that's often known as "The Witch of Christmas". Bewitched is also witch themed, and shares the first two letters in her name with Befana.
  • In a Call-Back to Madoka, the author references how magical girls who fall into despair become witches. This is essentially the plot of the fic.
  • Black cats are usually the familiar of witches. But in this case, a black cat hero ends up creating a witch-themed villain. Not to mention, the witch akuma is capable of making her own army of black cat themed familiars.
• The Musical: An adaptation of it.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After being cursed by Bewitched, Alya has one of these. It's what allows her to weaken the effects of the curse and apologize properly to Marinette.
  • Not as bad for Chloé, but when she realizes that her holding her tongue or trying to stay out of everyone's business to risk not causing any more akumas doesn't work, she feels pretty guilty about the situation at hand.
• Operation: Jealousy: Mentioned in Chapter 3 of Bewitched that Adrien and Lila dated at some point, but it didn't last too long. The implication being that Adrien was trying to get Marinette's attention.
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: Adrien is on the receiving end of quite a few of these. They don't really stop him, though.
  • When Marinette turns him down in the flashback in chapter one:
    Marinette: "And I know you've flirted with multiple girls, like Rena Rouge and me before you found out who I was. Which, if that's who you want to be, whatever. But I don't want a boyfriend that leads other people on, even as a joke."
  • Also in chapter one, when Nino confronts him about Marinette:
    Nino: "Neither one of us have ever done the sort of shit you've done. We've always respected each other's boundaries. Dude, if this is what you're willing to do just courting her, what are you going to do once you start dating her?"
  • Alya gets one in chapter two from Bewitched, after Lila tells everyone about her relationship with Ladybug:
    Marinette/Bewitched: "Well, did you get that, Ladyblogger? It turns out the whole time you were reporting about Lila and Ladybug's legendary friendship, you were getting played for a fool the entire time. Someone who refuses to fact check and blindly believes that they're right and yet gets fame and attention for it is just asking to be cursed."
  • And continuing the trend of Adrien getting called out, Kagami and Felix confront him in the same chapter:
    Kagami: "Congratulations, Adrien Agreste. You've managed to make one of the kindest, most hard working girls in our entire school into the most vengeful akuma Hawkmoth has ever created. I thought Chloé Bourgeois was reckless with her bullying, but at least she attempted to change her ways. You on the other hand..."
    Felix: "You're on a whole new level of stupid. Did you honestly think that Marinette was going to want your pushy, obsessive behavior in a relationship? You know better than anyone that she hates bullies."
  • To top it all off, Luka has some choice words upon getting filled in:
    Luka: "Shut the hell up. Don't tell me what to do. You didn't take it easy on Marinette when you decided to ruthlessly pursue her into being your girlfriend. You remember that day at the ice rink? I told Marinette to go after you, not because I wanted her to, but because I thought it would make her happy. I cared about her a lot, but I knew for a fact that she wasn't mine to control. Knowing that you went out of your way to hurt her for your own selfish purposes... Damn, you really know how to sicken a guy."

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